Monster (39 page)

Dreyer glanced over at Dillon in disbelief. “God help me. What a fool I’ve been.”

“Send everything you find about the origin of that call here,” McDaniels ordered, as Dreyer trudged out. “What time did you get the go ahead on this mission and were you with her?”

Dreyer nodded dejectedly. “Pete called me at seven last night. She came into the office with me to meet the team. She wasn’t out of my sight until we boarded the vans coming over here.”

“You’ll be able to see by when she called who it is running this cell. If Dillon did make the call, she knew there was a connection between this warehouse and the guy paying her.”

“He had a Russian accent,” Rasheed said.

“Get going, Jim.”

Dreyer left without argument.

McDaniels released Reskova. She rubbed circulation back into her arm absently, still glaring at Dillon with hatred. Rasheed helped the woman to her feet. He bound her hands behind her back with a plastic tie McDaniels handed him. Reskova took out her cell-phone.

“They will both be over at Jen’s place, Boss,” Rasheed informed her.

“How… oh…” Reskova hit the Rutledge’s number, waiting for her voice to sleepily say hello. “Jen, is Tom there with you?”

“Yeah… he’s… shit!” Rutledge exclaimed. Reskova heard Barrington trying to determine who Rutledge was talking to. “Who…”

“Never mind,” Reskova interrupted. “You and Tom meet me over at the office ASAP. I need you two.”

“Su…sure, Diane, we’ll be there,” Rutledge promised. “What’s this all about?”

“I’ll tell you later. I should be at the office in about forty-five minutes.”

“On our way,” Rutledge acknowledged, breaking the connection.

Reskova walked over to Dillon and grabbed a handful of her hair. She beckoned Dino over. McDaniels released the dog’s leash as Dino jumped to Reskova’s side. Reskova shook Dillon’s head by the hair. Dillon cried out.

“This dog will be in the backseat of my car with you. If you even sneeze too loudly, I’ll have him rip your throat out.” Reskova snapped out the order for Dino to hold.

Dino changed instantly from passive to snarling aggressive in the blink of an eye. He crouched near Dillon, growling and lunging as if he intended to take her leg off without a command. Dillon leaned fearfully into Reskova. Rasheed and McDaniels watched the scene passively.

“I’m going to let you go, bitch,” Reskova whispered in Dillon’s ear. “Please try something… please.”

Reskova looked over at Rasheed. “Kay, who has her phone?”

“Two men who came over with Dreyer he called Chet and Deke.”

“Good.” Reskova turned to McDaniels. “Those are two men you can trust. Go over to the surveillance van. They’ll probably have a start on that number. If you wait for Dreyer, you’ll be too late. I’m taking this whore with me right now. Call me if you need anything.”

“I will.” McDaniels moved out of her way. Reskova released Dillon and walked past him.

Dino immediately nipped Dillon with a snarl, herding the terrified woman stumbling ahead of him out of the van after Reskova. Rasheed watched Dino through the open door, growling and snapping at the woman’s heels. Dillon followed Reskova as closely as she dared.

“Do not cross that woman, my friend,” Rasheed warned.

“Gee, ya’ think? C’mon, let’s go see where we can find the scum behind all this.”

“Does this mean we have been converted into an entire Special Ops team, Mr. Mountain?”

“I’m afraid so, Kay,” McDaniels answered over his shoulder as he exited the van. “They’ll never get this mess straightened out in time to do anything useful. Want me to drop you at home?”

“Oh, you are so funny.” Rasheed picked up his sniper rifle. “The screams of those young men reminded me I am not so far from home. You were right, my friend. They should have had you go along with those men. You would have never approached a prefabricated warehouse like this one blindly.”

McDaniels slowed. Rasheed came abreast of him. McDaniels gestured angrily. “There’s never a reason to have a high profile building like that one built on a concrete base and then not have paved parking lots, roads… what the hell were they thinking? Jesus, Kay… I…”

Rasheed put a reassuring hand on McDaniels shoulder. “We did what was possible. The Special Ops teams learned a tragic lesson they will never forget. We will go and take lives until the screams recede in our minds to a whisper.”

McDaniels resumed walking toward the surveillance van. “That was some great work you did, Kay. I don’t know whether I could have snuffed those guys by the window in time. You saved our asses again, including Diane’s. Thank you.”

“You are most welcome. Even with the silencer on it, this sniper rifle is a very desirable tool.”

A tall, black haired man looked out of the surveillance van as they approached. He waved to them.

“That is the man Dreyer called Chet,” Rasheed informed McDaniels quietly.

“Reskova called me already.” Chet moved aside so McDaniels and Rasheed could enter the van. “They used one of those damn throw away cells to contact Dillon but we traced three calls she made before we ever reached this area. They were to a land line at this address.”

McDaniels took the printed address, complete with map, from the man. “Thank you. Do you have any specifics on the address?”

“Right here, Colonel,” the man named Deke called out over his shoulder, taking a sheaf of printed paper from the tray next to him where he sat at a computer terminal. “You guys want some help? Reskova said you two would be going out on this.”

“I appreciate the offer. I would assume Dreyer will need you two assisting in sorting out this mess. If I think Kay and I need reinforcements, I’ll keep them occupied until you can send help.”

“We sure got our butts handed to us today,” Chet added ruefully. He held out his hand to Rasheed. “Reskova told us what you did. It would have been hell if you hadn’t gotten those two pricks in the window.”

Rasheed grinned and shook Chet’s hand. “I will try to get a few more before long.”

“You do that.” Chet handed Rasheed a cell-phone. “Take this with you. As soon as we get more info on the building the call came to, I’ll update you right away.”

Chapter 28

Clarity

Outside the van, as McDaniels and Rasheed hurried toward Rasheed’s SUV, a black clad figure ran toward them. The man’s clothes were torn in places, and the armored vest he wore hung loosely on his frame. He carried a MAC 10, strapped over his right shoulder, and a large equipment bag. Slowing as he reached McDaniels and Rasheed, the man gave McDaniels a small wave of the hand.

“Colonel, I don’t know whether you recognize me, but…”

“You’re Pete Donaldson,” McDaniels interrupted, checking Donaldson’s form, and the white bandage over the left side of his face.

“I heard you were going out to get the assholes behind this. I’m coming along,” Donaldson said, jiggling his equipment bag. “I have gear in the bag I think you could use, and I’m very familiar with it.”

“You don’t look so good, Pete,” McDaniels replied. “Maybe…”

“I’m good to go, Colonel. I was lucky. My men weren’t.”

“Kay and I may do some things tonight you won’t be comfortable with.” McDaniels glanced at Rasheed momentarily and received an imperceptible nod from his friend.

“That ain’t likely, Sir,” Donaldson retorted stiffly. “We’d better get going. Daylight’s coming quick.”

Donaldson shook hands with Rasheed “Thank you for what you did. Our own team snipers would have called in for directions while those assholes lobbed grenades out of the window on us.”

“Perhaps you may be able to change things now,” Rasheed suggested, as the men resumed walking.

“Maybe, but it will have to be on a team by team basis. I would have to know my man real well. The Colonel knows you. I could spend three years in Special Ops with the man most qualified for sniper duties and still not know him. The Colonel has been in extended combat with you. For better or worse our teams are rarely in combat situations. We have to depend on our training.”

“It’s tough in this business to give a weapons free order, because we just don’t know what the unintended result will be. The rules of engagement handicap us and at the same time fail to prevent travesties like Ruby Ridge and Waco. I will be dead before I ever have a man shoot a woman in a doorway holding a baby in her arms like happened at Ruby Ridge.”

“Ruby Ridge?” Rasheed repeated questioningly as the three men reached his SUV.

“A sniper working for the ATF or FBI received some sort of free fire order,” McDaniels explained, getting into the front passenger seat while Donaldson hustled into the back. “He shot, and killed a woman holding a baby in her arms. Pete means I know you well enough that it wouldn’t matter what I told you, you wouldn’t shoot a woman holding a baby even if I had a gun at your head.”

“Ruby Ridge is not like Iraq then.” Rasheed tried to grasp Donaldson’s concept. “These vermin in the Middle East today do not care who they use as shields. The brave insurgents as your news media calls them would hold a newborn in front of them as a shield and call it a necessary tragedy of war. Yet if one of the young men fighting for the United States takes the best shot and hits an innocent the entire world wants to convene a war crimes trial on the spot. My friend trained our unit in handling the difference between soldiers and low life, bottom feeding scum. It is difficult and tragic when the enemy wears no uniform and hides behind women and children.”

“So, you would have taken the shot at Ruby Ridge, Sir?” Donaldson asked McDaniels in some confusion.

“No,” McDaniels answered, fastening his seat belt as Rasheed drove away. “She was not a threat and she certainly wasn’t using her baby as a shield while she tried to kill others. Besides, the original supposed crime they sent a hundred agents up there for was the shortening of two shotgun barrels – a manufactured crime elicited by an ATF agent leading to a death sentence for an eleven year old boy and his mother.”

“Kay prides himself on his ability. He’s the best I’ve ever trained. If the men in the window were holding a baby or a woman in front of them as they worked to lob grenades down on a team of his men he would take the best shot possible. He would still kill the terrorists. Whether an innocent died would be the terrorists’ fault, not his.”

“Your Ruby Ridge comment is a great example of someone behind the sights of a rifle who should have been used only in black and white situations, but never as a team’s loan sniper. If the man could kill an innocent woman holding a baby he could be valuable where a cold blooded killer is needed. I’ve done things I couldn’t explain to anyone so I’m not pulling the holier than thou card. We normally have two man sniper teams for a reason other than logistics. We need moral clarity too.”

Rasheed glanced down at the directional input McDaniels had punched into his on-board GPS unit. “You cannot be both a very effective sniper and also have a rigid conscience. Shooting a woman holding a baby is not the same as taking the best possible shot at a terrorist using a baby as a shield while he murders your comrades.”

Donaldson leaned back in his seat while Rasheed maneuvered the SUV out of the phalanx of vehicles. “I’ve never thought of it in that kind of detail. You’re right though, these situations are changing on a daily basis. I can’t fault those assholes in the warehouse from a tactical standpoint. If they would have been able to start lobbing the grenades and fired off the rocket launchers, they probably wouldn’t have needed an escape tunnel. They could have walked right past us.”

“This was a rough one, Pete.” McDaniels looked back at the Special Ops agent, trying to gauge the young man’s mental toughness. “It’s easy for me to say you should have been looking for the unexpected or you should never have approached a pre-fab steel warehouse in the middle of a field with no cement access. You’ll never forget what happened tonight and you’ll never make the same mistake again. Sometimes, that’s all we have left.”

Donaldson nodded grimly, and they rode in silence for a time.

“How do you want to do this dance, Colonel?” Donaldson asked finally. “Do you think we’ll take them by surprise?”

“I’m not sure how suspicious the Russian will get when he doesn’t hear back from the Dillon woman,” McDaniels admitted. “There may not be anyone there at the address we traced her phone call to anyhow. We’re playing catch up. Did you know Dillon?”

“Yeah, I did. It’s hard to believe. What do you think they’ll do with her?”

“If they establish she sold you all out for money, it’ll be bad. You said you have some stuff in the bag that can help us?”

“I have a narrow range lightning burst weapon. It’s a prototype. If they have an alarm system I can knock it out along with any other optics or motion detectors in the building. If they’re in a major civilian building, we could be in trouble.”

“Meaning the lightning burst ain’t quite as narrow as they had hoped it would be?”

Donaldson chuckled. “Like I said - it’s a prototype. Do you have anything on the building they’re in yet?”

“We should be getting updated about it shortly.”

“Why would we be in trouble if you use this lightning weapon you spoke of?” Rasheed asked Donaldson.